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To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

Analysis

The narrator speaks to a woman who has been slow to respond to his advances. He first describes how he would love her, if only they had an unlimited amount of time together--even if she kept refusing. The second stanza he speaks of how short life is and once life has ended there's no love in the grave. The final stanza urges the woman to comply to his request, because loving each other will make the most out of the short amount of time life has to offer. "To His Coy Mistress" is written as couplet rhymes with eight syllables each.

Almost everyone has had a thing for someone who was coy the way Marvell's mistress is. It can be quite frustrating, but it can also be quite adventurous. There's something about a hunt that makes it feel so amazing, and once we capture our prey, it's all the more glorious.

Poem

To His Coy Mistress
By 

Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side.
Should'st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster then Empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast.
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to durst;
And into ashes all my Lust.
The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning glew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Written in the .
Next: Upon Appleton House

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Nationality
English

Literary Movement
Metaphysical, 17th Century

Subjects
Love, Relationship, Time, Life